---------- Britain's Blair bids goodbye, good luck to the
future of Labour

MANCHESTER, England - Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair
amassed an emotional farewell from Labour Party members Tuesday as the
Manchester venue resounded with applause and cheers following his final
annual conference speech in his nine year reign as premier.

Outlining extensively the achievements of the party over the past
decade and thanking the people who had helped him make it happen -
including his assumed-successor Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon
Brown - Blair?s speech was very much one of departure.

TOKYO - Japan's new Finance Minister Koji Omi said Tuesday
that the administration of new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not start
full-fledged debate on possible increases in the consumption tax until
fall next year.

The remark suggests the Abe administration will shelve debate
about tax hikes, including the consumption tax, ahead of the House of
Councillors election next July.

---------- Hankyu, Hanshin to tie up in travel services

OSAKA - Hankyu Holdings Inc. and Hanshin Electric Railway Co., due
to be integrated as Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc. on Sunday, plan to
join forces in promoting their travel services, company officials said
Tuesday.

The latest plan appears to be the first step toward a probable
future integration of their travel operations, which is not expected to
be realized soon due to technical difficulties.

TOKYO - New Defense Agency Director General Fumio Kyuma said
Tuesday he sees difficulties in compiling a single law that would allow
Japan to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces overseas for international
peace cooperation activities as the circumstances in such deployments
may vary from case to case.

''There are various cases involved in sending the SDF
abroad,'' Kyuma said in a late-night press conference at the
agency. ''I think there will be some difficult aspects in
trying to put all the cases together under one law.''

---------- North Korea blasts Japan, U.S. and South Korea at U.N.

NEW YORK - North Korea attacked the United States, Japan and South
Korea on a wide range of issues at the U.N. General Assembly on
Tuesday, singling out the three nations in a scathing speech on why
''the desire of the humankind for a peaceful and prosperous
world in the new century is still faced with grave
challenges.''

''The threats and high-handed acts of the superpower are
evermore undisguised towards the DPRK as their target,''
Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said, alluding to the United
States.

---------- Hitler pictures fetch thousands of dollars at British
auction

LONDON - A total of 21 pictures thought to be the work of Adolf
Hitler fetched 118,000 pounds ($223,691) at an auction in Britain on
Tuesday.

The watercolors and sketches depict countryside scenes and are
believed to have been done by Hitler while working as a corporal on the
border of France and Belgium during the First World War.

---------- 10 foreigners arrested for violating immigration law

NAGASAKI - Ten foreign nationals have been arrested for possessing
no passports in violation of the immigration control law in Iki,
Nagasaki Prefecture, the police said Tuesday.

Kim Yong Se, 32, who described himself as a South Korean, and nine
others were arrested around 10 a.m. Tuesday at a ferry terminal and
other places in the city of Iki, according to investigations.

---------- Thai junta to be barred from politics for 2 years

BANGKOK - Thailand's new provisional constitution to be
promulgated later this week will bar the military rulers and other
related legislative officials from running for parliament seats within
two years after a full-fledged constitution is put in place.

The five-member Council for Democratic Reform headed by Army
Commander-in-Chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin will also be renamed as
Council of National Security which will include another 15 members,
possibly inclusive of civilians, according to a draft of the
provisional charter seen by Kyodo News.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush said Tuesday he has
authorized the declassification of an April intelligence estimate that
media reports say suggests a link between the U.S.-led war in Iraq and
more widespread terrorist activity.

Calling the leak of information from the report an election-year
ploy ''to create confusion in the minds of the American
people,'' Bush said he had directed Director of National
Intelligence John Negroponte to declassify the key judgments outlined
in the document.

TOKYO - Law enforcement officers from Japan, China and 10 other
Asian countries as well as one region are set to gather in Tokyo on
Wednesday to discuss cooperation in the fight against cybercrime.

The number of participating countries is the largest ever,
according to Japanese officials.

---------- Type of fat hormone has strong anticancer function:
study

TOKYO - A type of fat hormone secreted from healthy fat cells,
adiponectin, has a strong cancer-fighting function, a team of
researchers from the University of Tokyo said Wednesday.

The findings from the animal-based experiments, led by Joji
Kitayama, a researcher at the university's Surgical Oncology
Department, shows a strong link between the health condition of fat
cells and progression of cancer.

---------- Myanmar defends itself against U.S. at U.N.

NEW YORK - Myanmar's foreign minister defended the country
against the decision of the U.N. Security Council to adopt it as an
agenda item in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

''To our dismay and frustration, there has been glaring
abuse of the mandate entrusted to the Security Council by its member
states by unjustly placing the situation of Myanmar on the agenda of the
Security Council by alleging that it poses a threat to regional peace
and security,'' Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win told the
assembly.

NEW YORK - Japan vowed continued efforts Tuesday to resolve North
Korea's nuclear ambitions as well as its past abductions of
Japanese citizens ''comprehensively.''

Addressing the 61st session of the U.N. General Assembly, Japanese
U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima noted the U.N. Security Council, in an
unanimous decision, sent a firm message condemning North Korea after
the launch of ballistic missiles on July 4.

NEW YORK - With the election of Shinzo Abe as Japan's new
prime minister, South Korea's Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister
Ban Ki Moon said Tuesday he hopes the new leader would face up to his
country's past in efforts to repair damage to the bilateral
relations that were exacerbated by Junichiro Koizumi's repeated
visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine.

''We sincerely hope that Prime Minister Abe will learn
lessons from what has transpired in Prime Minister Koizumi's
administration,'' the South Korean foreign minister told Kyodo
News in an interview.

---------- Asia expert named head of new U.S.-China center at Asia
Society

NEW YORK - The Asia Society has appointed China expert Orville
Schell as the director of its new center on U.S.-China Relations,
according to a statement released Tuesday.

''Having worked my whole life in the China field, and
having long believed in the importance of close relations between the
United States and the People's Republic of China, I am extremely
pleased to join the Asia Society and direct their Center on U.S.-China
Relations,'' Schell said in the statement.

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